The Power of Three
by Witch Nova
Summary: Sherlock jumped. This is what happens after.
1. The Waking

A/N: Well all, here is a little Xmas based Sherlock fic for you all. Now this has to come with a warning as there will be deaths, talk of suicide and another nasty instances. Also I must tell you that the opinions on the issues addressed in this story are for the plot and not necessarily the author's own so no flames on that account please. This is dark, it is surreal and it is loosely an AU fic so please bear that in mind when reading.

_**As always the wonderful Sherlock Holmes does not belong to me and I also hold no ownership on the famed work of Dickens upon which you will soon come to understand that this is loosely based on. So, without further ado, onwards…**_

The Waking.

He let his phone drop to the hard roof beneath his feet, hearing it shatter but it did not bother him, he knew he wouldn't be needing it anymore. He looked down one last time; looked down to John.

He'd live.

John would live, Mrs Hudson and Lestrade would live. His one life given in return for their three. Fair trade. Not that they would know but perhaps that would be better, would ease the pain; the suicide of the ashamed rather than remembering the sacrifice. It was that thought that gave him momentum, pitched him forward from the roof, letting the seconds pass as he plummeted towards the pavement.

He closed his eyes on instinct as impact approached but they flew open as the ground failed to be hard and painful, failed to break his bones, failed to kill him. Instead the surface felt soft, cradling him as a familiar scent hit his senses.

His bed. His room. His flat.

He shook his head, confusion an odd feeling as he sat up, patting himself down to check for the injuries he should have. He ran his hands over his face, logic finally returning to him and he felt the tears in his eyes.

"A dream," he said to himself before he laughed weakly, "A dream but…"

When had he fallen asleep?

When had he stopped to sleep since everything with Moriarty had come to such a dramatic head?

When had reality stopped and his imagination taken over?

John would know. It was no doubt that John had put him to bed; coat, suit jacket and shoes removed but everything else intact. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd woken in such a state, fatigue and overwork leaving him dead on his feet until his friend forced him to rest.

He swung his legs off the side of the bed, toeing off his socks in a need to ground himself, feel the carpets and the floors beneath him as the dream still lingered.

"John?" he called but silence came as the reply.

It was dark in the room and he didn't know what time it was, his friend could be asleep but with the heavy curtains drawn it could just as likely be daylight outside and John would be out. He needed more data, the need to explain stronger than it had ever been in him. He got to his feet, a wave of dizziness hitting him and he could already here John's voice berating him for not eating properly. He opened the bedroom door, finding the room just as dim beyond, the corridor, bathroom and kitchen clearly devoid of human life. He headed to the living room, finding it as black as the rest with all the blinds and curtains drawn. John always shut the flat up at nighttime as though the curtains had some magical power to block out the terrors of the dark.

John would be sleeping but the dream had left him so rattled that he needed the reassurance, even just to look in on him as he slumbered. He went to the door, trying the handle several times before giving it up for lost and trying to find the key. They never locked the door but maybe Moriarty had rattled John just as much and he had sought the comfort of locks and bolts. The key proved elusive even when he had turned over all the usual hiding places, even rooting through the pockets of his coat that had been slung unceremoniously over the back of the sofa. Claustrophobia began to make itself known as he tried the other door from the kitchen and found it locked just as fast.

He pounded on the wood, calling out John's name in a desperate mantra, wondering if something more sinister was afoot. He knew his panic went against every aspect of his character but he knew something was desperately wrong as though the world had spun on its axis and was yet to right itself.

He heard a shuffling behind him and turned, longing to see John and dreading to see Moriarty but neither were there; the kitchen stood silently in its usual disarray behind him. The darkness cast low, terrifying shadows along the walls at once concealing and revealing odd shapes that took on a menace in the low light. He forced his mind to calm, to rationalise; John had put him to bed and he always slept like the dead when persuaded to, he would have continued to do so if it had not been for the dreadful nightmare. John was rattled by Moriarty so he had locked them down tight but had forgotten to leave a key for him. He would call him, call him and wake him and have him come down and open the door.

He rooted through his pockets once more, liberating the phone from the suit jacket that was hung on the back of the kitchen chair. He pressed the seldom-used call button, knowing a text would more than likely be ignored. He held it to his ear but heard nothing, no dialling tone, no error message, no voicemail. He tried once more, cursing the ancient flat that always seemed to eat phone signals regardless of where you stood. Again there was no answer.

He almost dropped the offending phone as he heard footsteps behind him, entering the darkened living room. He smiled, realising that John had no doubt heard him rustling around and had come down to either persuade him back to bed or to the dinner table. He rubbed a fist against his stomach, food seeming the better choice as he felt like he hadn't eaten in twenty years. John would be surprised. Intent on imparting the news when it was fresh he stepped around the kitchen door, the words already on his lips even as he found no on to speak them to.

"John I… John?"

Shadows again, nothing but shadows that seemed to grow deeper and darker. He tried the handle of the door again, finding it still locked but clearly the one downstairs was not as he heard it slam, footsteps thundering up towards the flat but they did not stop, continuing upwards with shouts and curses. Upwards to where John was sleeping. Panic truly stole his soul then, remnants of the dream still hanging over him; John under threat, John's life in danger. He rushed the door, slamming his shoulder into it but it barely even gave and he stumbled back from it in agony.

Brute strength was not his forte and he knew he would need to think his way out. Picking the lock would take too long, precious seconds John didn't have. The window would need to be his answer. Hot or cold, rain or shine, John always kept his window open and he could reach it if he perched on the juliette outside the living room and pulled himself up into John's room. He could take the assailants by surprise, give him a chance to grab John's gun or at least allow the soldier a chance to get a counter attack in.

His action was spurred on as he heard his friend's terrified shout that quickly turned to a pained scream. He threw open the curtains and pushed aside the nets, frowning as they crumbled in his hands like rotten silk. It was the sight beyond the window though that had him questioning his sanity. He slammed the curtains shut once more, squeezing his eyes tight shut before he opened both once more. Beyond the window stood not the familiar buildings across the street, the streetlamps, the bus stop, the occasional member of his homeless network looking for work but instead a rocky, desolate landscape like a parched desert or the surface of some distant planet.

Great dust clouds blew in a rushing wind and all appeared dead and silent. He closed the curtains once more, the sight too much for his galloping mind that longed to analyse and explain but failed him time and time again.

"John!" he called out, his voice hoarse from the tears he hadn't realised he had shed, "John."

The cries from above were once more his answer, cries of pain and anguish so alien to his friend and yet so clearly him. Anger burned in his chest, anger that anyone could hurt his dearest friend, anger that anyone could reach him in the sanctuary of their home, anger that his brilliant mind could not fathom out the puzzle around him. He pounded the door that was locked to him, clawed it, would have used his teeth if he could find purchase but it did nothing, the door refused to give. So caught was he in his shouting and flailing that he did not notice the darkness when it fell, so black he could not even see his hands mere inches from his face.

He froze as silence fell, John's cries quieted and even the house seemed to hold its breath. His own raged breathing was the only sound, cutting through the silence like a knife. If he could see he knew each exhalation would be visible and the air turned icy cold and he wrapped his arms around himself instinctively.

His hindbrain, his animal instinct turned his ears where it could not turn his eyes and each tiny sound was recorded, analysed, tested for a threat. It began as a drip, the hollow sound of a tap leaking drop by drop in the dead of the night.

Drip…drip…drip drip…drip…drip drip drip.

The tuneless rhythm played out without pause. Dampness joined the frigid air, bringing with it the smell of decay, rotting wood and a scent all too familiar to one called to crime scenes. Rotten, cold flesh.

The dragging came next; something heavy and coarse against the old wooden floor. Footsteps lumbered alongside; heavy boots pounding slowly as they took the load.

"John?" he tried weakly once more, longing for some elaborate joke.

Light dance before him as he heard the distant chime of a church bell. Midnight; striking as the light took shape, embracing the sounds to give them corporeal form. Realisation took a moment to come as he regard the man now stood before him but when it came it was both a blow and a relief.

"So I am dead," he said, the fact seeming accepted.

The man before him nodded, "You jumped five storeys my son and failed to sprout wings."

The voice, so sweetly familiar, the voice that had lulled him to sleep with stories as a child. His father's voice. The voice he had not heard since he was eight years of age.

He looked like Mycroft save for a few traits that differed, their mother's genes not yet talking hold of the Holmesian form. He wore a large overcoat that dripped steadily on the floor as though he had been in a rainstorm. As he looked on though he saw also the heavy metal chains that attached his father to boulders that any man would struggle to lift.

"You never believed in an afterlife, did you Sherlock?" said his father, "That was my influence."

"That and the fact that logic would dictate the assumption. Why should there be an afterlife for one species when we hold none for any other? Besides, belief in heaven would denote a belief in a god," said Sherlock, the chill around him making his bones ache.

His father shook his head sadly, "I taught you so poorly if I taught you to stand so emotionless before death," he said, "Even more so if you think this heaven or is it heaven to you when your father stands before you in chains?"

Sherlock frowned, "Hell then, I've been sent to Hell. How am I meant to have any concept of either when both you and mother taught me nothing of them?" he said bitterly, "Am I to be taught of the omnipresence also? Am I meant to believe an ancient book of fairy stories that tells me I am Hell bound for dying to save my friends or is it the fact that I worked on a Sunday? John often referred to that as sacrilege. You're here, am I to take it form that that all suicide must be punished? So be it then."

His father laughed, "You are something, I'll give you that, all bravado when anyone else would be cowering but then you always loved an audience," he said, "I can't tell you if there's a god Sherlock, if there is I haven't seen him. In fact I've met no one in almost thirty years, you're the first person I've seen. Look around you, tell me what you see."

Sherlock frowned but acquiesced, "My flat, 221B Baker Street with everything as it was before I left it last except…"

"Except, that's the word," said his father, "Except. Those little changes that make all the difference. You always felt safe in this flat; safe and warm but now you're shivering despite the fire in the grate and the doors are locked around you. To keep a horror out do you think or to keep one in? Then there's John, I know you heard him, John's screaming and you can't get to him. That's your purgatory, this is the afterlife you've created for yourself; eternity fearing soon unseen enemy, eternity of everything being not quite right, eternity of John's screams to keep you up at night in torment."

Sherlock wanted to argue but the very world around him defied him and he was unable to form the words. He looked up at his father's haggard, dripping face and asked a question he had asked of none but himself for years.

"Why?"

"You're a suicide Sherlock, doesn't even your meagre knowledge of every religious text tell you what happens to suicides?"

"But I…I did it so they'd live," said Sherlock, "I did it for them, I killed myself for them."

The words tumbling from his own lips seemed to bring the reality of the situation home to the detective and he slumped down in the nearest chair.

Dead. Dead and in Baker Street with the ghost of his father as John screamed upstairs, for all eternity because he had tried to save them.

"I did it for them," he said, "Moriarty he…there were snipers and I couldn't take the risk, the thought of John…I had to act, I had no choice but to act. Nothing would save them but my suicide and now I am to be punished for it."

"You are not being punished for your suicide Sherlock," said his father, "Your life is your own to do with as you please. This purgatory is for the others you have destroyed."

"But I've never…"

"Taken a life?" said his father, "Maybe not yet but you will."

Sherlock frowned, his brain feeling pulled every which way, "But I'm dead, how can I kill someone when I'm dead?"

"A suicide kills more than one person," said his father.

Sherlock groaned in frustration as he tugged at his hair, "Enough riddles! Tell me why I'm here."

"Because everyone you died to save will de anyway."

"Everyone dies," said Sherlock, "I just stopped it happening too soon."

"maybe it did not happen in that precise instance but they will die because of you all the same," said his father, "All those you believe your saved will have their lives ended Sherlock, before their time and because of you."

Sherlock felt the tears leap to his eyes but he blinked them away harshly, "Then it has all be in vain," he said, "And if I have to be punished for it then so be it."

A cold laugh met his ears and he looked up to see his father holding the chains that bound him, "That's what I said," he said, "When I realised why I was here and what it meant. I died because I thought it would be better for you all; replace one scandal with one that could be blamed on stress or illness. I never realised what it would do to you all. Your mother was so ill all the time and you and Mycroft were so afraid to love because of how much I hurt you. Until now my existence here has had me drowning, every moment the crushing pain of water filling my lungs but now and then it stops, stops so I can see how you all are now. I see your mother, struggling with that old house, still wearing black every single day. She was a beautiful woman, she should have stayed so even as she aged but grief has eaten her, eaten my Violet's bloom. Then there's Mycroft, so cold and cruel and alone. He should have married, filled your mother's arms with grandchildren but instead he spends every waking hour working, trying to be perfect at every moment because I failed to be. Then there's you, my bright bonny boy. Your laugh could melt the heart of the worst of mankind when you were small and your energy would rouse anyone from their lethargy. You could have been anyone then I did what I did and you died. Now when you laugh its cold and your energy you spill into one foolhardy quest after another until you found the one that led you here. You're here because my death made you what you are."

Sherlock raised a hand as though to reach out to the man before him but he let it fall once more to his side, "Whose to say we wouldn't have ended up this way anyway?" he said, "And I'm here because of you. If I'm here because a man who dies for his friends deserves purgatory then I'll serve it with you or if it can release you I'll swear that I hold you to no blame. I am what I am through my own choices and actions."

"This is not some fairytale where all is solved with a few words Sherlock," said his father, "You can't free me but that doesn't mean that I can't free you but only if you truly realise what your death means. Even now you don't believe that what I did changed your history but it did as yours will change the history of others. We don't have long, only until the sunrises. Once its up you'll have crossed and there will be no going back."

"Tell me what I have to do then," said Sherlock.

"Listen," said his father, "Three will come who will show you what I mean. If you listen and you understand, you may yet save your friends."

"Three, what three?" said Sherlock, rubbing his eyes as the room around him seemed to mist, "Why can't you give me a straight answer?"

"No one can tell Sherlock Holmes anything, you need to learn it for yourself," said his father, his form seeming to blur as Sherlock looked on, "Just listen…"

xxxx

A/N: See you all tomorrow.


	2. The Past

The Past

A door slammed noisily downstairs and Sherlock turned instinctively towards the sound, listening out once more for the terrible noises that preceded John's screams. He turned back, wanting to beg his father to tell him how to stop the noise but there was no one there. He frantically scanned the room before he rushed to those he had access to but no evidence remained of the ghostly, chained figure he had been speaking too.

He returned to the living room and sat down on the sofa, burying his head in his hands as his brain raced to make sense of everything. Ghosts and purgatory and gods were all fairy stories in his eyes, his rational mind said as much. People were born, they lived and when they died that was it, no enduring spirit, no after-life, just cold, hard death where the body would rot and putrefy, taking everything with it. He raised his head, looking out over the expanse of the room. The flat was silent, no shouts, no screams, silent save for the faint hum of the electrics. Baker Street at three in the morning. Few people realised how silent London could be at night when it wished to but Sherlock did, so often up while the city slept, just him and his own thoughts.

"Baker Street, three AM," he said to himself, his words convincing even though his mind fought against them.

He was still dreaming, obviously dreaming or in some coma in a hospital having survived the fall but so badly hurt his mind could only create a warped view of reality. John would be out there, sat in the hard hospital chair and whittering on because he'd read somewhere that coma patients wake if they hear voices that are familiar. Sherlock smiled at the thought, imagining his friend being a daily visitor, probably chatting up the pretty nurse that worked the rotation at the end of the day when they were meant to be going home.

He would wake, his body would heal and he would wake to the sterile steel of a hospital bed, all he needed to do was wait. He got to his feet, emboldened by his decision and headed towards the violin case on the mantle opposite. He tried the catch but it refused to flip open. He pressed down on the lid and tried once more but it stuck fast, refusing to open. He felt the frustration growing within him and stepped back, calming the rising panic that threatened to overwhelm his rational. Abandoning the violin he headed to the kitchen, pulling various bits of experimental paraphernalia out onto the kitchen table. He soon had it all set up but as he added the agent that would promote a reaction nothing happened; the fire burned beneath the flask, the chemical dripped from its pipette into the solution below but no reaction occurred.

He slammed the pipette down, the chemicals skittering over the surface of the table where they should have left a mark but they failed to cause even the slightest bit of damage. He hauled himself to his feet, determined to beat whatever was trying to force him to face reality. He all but fell on the nearest bookshelf, tearing from it the largest tome and opening it randomly. At first he thought it was his panic that blurred his vision but he was not to be that lucky, the words swirled and warped and he could not read them. He slammed the book shut and threw it across the room, falling into his chair as he heard the abused literature hit the floor near the sofa.

He was not in purgatory he was in Hell and all he wanted was to wake. He felt tears in his eyes as he thought of eternity listening to John's cries, not being able to ever go to him, to put it right. He was not sure how long he sat with his head in his hands, the room utterly silent around him, but something made him raise his head as gooseflesh ran up his back and made his hair stand on end. His eyes were drawn to the flickering luminescence of the light in the kitchen before another light captured him, faint and fleeting in the darkened doorway of his bedroom. He got slowly to his feet, padding as silently as he could towards the room.

Soft singing, barely more than a whisper took his hearing, nursery rhymes he had deleted so long ago as unnecessary. The voice was high, childlike and full of joy, so far removed from the oppression of the flat. He crossed the threshold of the room and the singing stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

"Hello?" he called, "Who's there?"

He jumped as he heard the distant chime of Big Ben, the hour striking with a single clang. The room was dark and Sherlock reached out a hand to steady himself on the bed, feeling the mattress dip far further than it should has done under such a touch.

"Try jumping 'Lock, its much more fun."

He barely kept his feet as he looked up to see the young girl that stood on the mattress, bouncing on her toes before she jumped, her head almost touching the ceiling before she landed on the bed. She sat down, crossing her arms and legs as she stared up at him in waiting. She was small, barely eight years of age with ratty brown hair and freckles across her nose. She wore a neat school uniform, pleated navy and white with a jumper bearing the insignia of the establishment that educated her. Sherlock recognised the design of the school his parents had sent him to before Eton, the both of them thinking themselves modern for sending their son to a co-ed. The same recognition came to the girl's face though he refused to believe his eyes.

"You're dead," he said bluntly.

"So are you," said the girl, chewing the end of one of her pigtails.

"But you died years ago, when we were at school," he said, "You got hit by a car on the first day of winter term."

"They called you a girl because you cried in assembly when they told everyone," she said with a frown, "They shouldn't have been mean."

"I got used to it," said Sherlock, not quite believing the conversation but willing to follow any path, "I guess you're the ghost my Father told me about."

The little girl nodded, getting to her feet, "You should jump on the bed, its fun."

"I'll take your word for it," he said.

"That's what Mycroft used to say."

"What?"

"Mycroft used to say that when you jumped on the bed," she said, still bouncing, "I've seen him."

"How?" said Sherlock, reaching out to try and still her, "Where have you seen him? Is he here?"

"Jump on the bed."

"Tell me, please. I need to know if you've seen him because he isn't dead."

"Jump on the bed 'Lock."

Sherlock turned away from the girl with a growl of frustration, grabbing fistfuls of his own hair as reason and reality made war once more in his mind. He heard the springs cease their protest as the little girl stopped bouncing and he hoped for a moment that the strange apparition had gone but reality was not to be kind and a small, cold hand came to rest on his shoulder.

"You need to trust me," came the voice though it sounding weighted with a wisdom too old for her years, "Take my hand 'Lock."

He wanted to resist but he remembered those words, those words spoken to him on the first day of the autumn term when no one wanted to play with him and then one equally lonely little girl had reached out to him. Selfish as she was though she went and died a term later and ended up deleted like so many other memories but now she stood at his back, as real as anything else in the strange world he had found himself in an he could do nothing but respond.

He reached up, taking hold of the small hand before he turned. The ghostly face seemed to brighten as she stepped down from the bed, so tiny next to him where he remembered them being all but the same height before. She led him silently from the room, back through the darkened kitchen and living room that looked so insubstantial in the light to be better seen as a movie set then a real abode. He followed her, almost numb with the strangeness as she went to the door. Once more he heard the horrific sounds of heavy booted feet and John's screams, his heart clenching in his chest at the desperation in it. He saw the girl's hand reach out to the handle and nearly slapped it as a parent would to prevent a child touching something that could harm but he stayed the impulse, watching in morbid fascination as she turned the handle where he could not.

The door swung open and the sounds ceased as swiftly as though someone had pulled the plug on a sound system. Sherlock did not wait for an explanation, his feet carrying him two stairs at a time up to John's room. He threw open the door, braced for the carnage he expected to see but nothing met him not even the common sight of John's bed turned down with military precision or the neat appointment of his room that Sherlock would mess up on every chance he got. The room stood bare and empty, a lonely, dusty box in the corner the only thing in the sparse cold room.

"Where…where are his things?" he said, hating the tremble in his own voice, "John's things should be here."

He moved around the room as one possessed as though pacing from wall to wall would bring back his friend, knowing that he was being watched silently from the door by the young girl.

"His bed went here," he said, slapping the far wall, "Said something about Afghanistan and waking up to the sun. His dresser was next to it, had that dreadful picture of him and Stamford on it when they were students and one of Harry and one of Molly, Mrs Hudson and me with him on his birthday. He hated when I moved it. He had his wardrobe there, with his dress uniform in the bag that he made me promise never to go in. There were medals in there, didn't look at them…bravery and stupidity mix too easily in war…probably why he got shot. They should still be here."

"This is before you," said the girl, "John isn't with you now."

"Do you think I don't know that?" he snapped, before he slumped back against the wall in frustration, "Oh God why doesn't this make any sense?"

"But it makes perfect sense," said the girl, "This is before you."

"What do you mean before me?" said Sherlock, "I'm sick of riddles."

"Take my hand 'Lock," she said, stepping into the room.

He took it almost absently, jumping in surprise as the window before them flew open without any force to act upon it. The girl began to walk towards it and Sherlock followed, unsure how or why as his body failed to stop even as he willed it. He couldn't even find a voice to protest the movement as the reached it, London stretching out beyond. He felt eyes upon him and managed to turn his head to see the girl beside him smile.

"Jump 'Lock," she said.

He had no choice, it was as though the building fell away from him rather than he away from the building. His eyes shut on instinct as they plummeted towards the path below but the impact never came. He felt weightless, floating as opposed to falling and there was laughter, tinny childish laughter and the sound of running. He heard a voice, a young boy's voice making the familiar noise of a plane in flight before another joined it, slightly older making the rat-ta-tat-ta-tat noise of gunfire from another plane. His feet touched the floor and he dared to open his eyes, seeing first the wooden floor that seemed so familiar before he raised his gaze to the room he knew well.

Gone were the cramped confines of Baker Street to be replaced by the opulent family room of his childhood home. Expensive furnishings and ancient treasured possessions made for the display of wealth he had so rebelled against in his later life but now it was not a seen of derision but of happiness. He saw his mother, young and smiling beneath her long black curls, laughing at the drama played before her. His father sat in a chair across the room, harrumphing behind his paper when anyone looked his way but turning down the corner and watching with amusement at the two boys who raced before him carrying model Spitfires and Hurricanes and acting out some great battle only they were certain of the strategy of.

Sherlock remembered Mycroft, chubby little Mycroft who had never had a lot of puff when it came to running. He watched as the boy came to a halt in the middle of the room, waving the planes around himself but allowing the younger boy race around him. Sherlock knew he had seen the boy before him in the mirror but he felt a strange sort of half recognition as he watched his younger self. So long had it been since he had laughed so carefree, run without a purpose or goal. The innocence of his own childhood was almost jarring as it came before him.

"You were so happy then."

The small voice beside him made him jump and he looked down once more at the girl from his school days.

"You made them happy too," she said.

"Why have you brought me here?" he said, torn between watching her and watching the game that still played on.

"So you remember that little boy."

"Of course I remember him," said Sherlock, "I am him."

The girl shook her head, "You forgot him and the others mourned him," she said, "Do you remember this day?"

Sherlock nodded, "My fourth birthday," he said, "My parents bought me the kits for the planes and My and I spent all mourning putting them together. We had to pretend the Hurricanes were the Luftwaffe because we hadn't got around to making them yet."

"You often played with your brother in this room when you were small."

Sherlock smiled at the thought, "So often, even when he did cheat."

"You were as bad you know?"

"But he caught me far less."

"There was another scene in this room between you," said the girl, "One not so sunny as this."

Sherlock's hands clenched as one thought immediately came to his mind, "I do not need to see that," he said, "I know what happened then."

The girl said nothing even as Sherlock's younger self raced towards them, twin spitfires in his small hands. The impact when it came was strange, Sherlock stumbling as though it was a strong gust of wind rather than a small boy that had hit him. He struggled back to balance but the scene before him had changed in the second it took. Gone were his parents and the wild boys at play, the furniture covered by dustsheets and lit by the dim light from the window rather than the glow of the chandelier. One figure however was present in the scene, tall and lanky with a sunken look and hair grown out long and shabby. A cigarette moved languidly from his lips to dangle in his hand over the side of the sofa he had part uncovered, dropping ash without concern for where it fell. The sight of his twenty-year-old self was alarming in its state even to Sherlock who had seen it before, not realising the degradation almost two years of drink and drugs had wrought upon him.

He grew aware of another figure watching from the doorway to the room; clutching a sheet of expensive embossed paper so tightly his knuckles were white. Mycroft. Already turned out in a sharp suit that would be his common silhouette for the rest of his life, higher in the government than men twice his age. His voice when it rang out was mature and measured but laced with an anger Sherlock had only ever heard directed at him.

"When our mother died I swore I would do all I could to encourage your gifts," he said, "I made sure you had all you needed to excel at Eton and for two years I have funded you at Cambridge, giving you money every time you asked for it because I truly believed you were making something of yourself. I thought one day you would be looked to by the world as the best in your field but what on earth are you now? Turned out and in this state, every penny wasted on drugs when you should know better than anyone what they can do to people. I can't believe that you have done this to yourself."

"Oh boo hoo."

His own voice, so sarcastic and disrespectful, scratchy from whatever had clearly been forced down it the night before or up it in the consequences the morning after. Sherlock shuddered as he saw his brother further restrain any outburst in response.

"Just tell me why you did it Sherlock," he said, "Tell me why I received this letter this morning and find you here now when you should be at your books."

"I was bored," said the youth, "Don't you ever get bored. The professors are idiots, the students simpletons, how was I meant to do anything of worth there?"

"And so drugs were the answer?"

A shrug, the only response to the question before another cigarette was drawn from its packet and a match struck against the leg of the chair, leaving a burn mark in its wake.

"You need to do something with your life Sherlock," said Mycroft, "I'm sending you to a clinic that specialises…"

"Packing me off again? Same as Eton, same as Cambridge. If I'd completed my degree what then? Packed off into a research programme? A laboratory in some government bunker? Tell me where I was going to get packed off to next Mycroft. It's always been the same. I will not be going to your rehab, however expensive it is, you're done giving me orders."

"Then where will you go?"

The younger Sherlock finally raised his head and looked over at his brother, before he opened his arms to their widest stretch, "The world is my oyster."

"And if I cut off your allowance, then where will you go?" said Mycroft, "That money is in trust to me until you find an occupation Sherlock. The terms of mother's will were strict and I will see them done, regular paid occupation and it will be released to your in the prescribed percents. You could challenge of course but the legal battle would be lengthy and costly."

"I don't need your money. I can get along just fine on my own."

"Sherlock if you would just see reason…"

The movement was so swift it made the dust fly up from every nearby surface, Sherlock on his feet and turned to his brother with more hatred in his eyes than he had ever borne for anyone, "This is not about reason, this is about me conforming to Mycroft's grand world order and I tell you now that I will not," he said, "You will never tie me to your ridiculous life. I will not bow and simper to the powers that only rule because men like you bow and simper to them. I see this world Mycroft and it disgusts me as much as it bores me. Pointless, little lives spent in service to ones who do not care who is there to serve. No I will not see reason, _brother, _I would rather challenge it."

"Then do so properly," said Mycroft, holding his open hands out as though they acted on their own in a bid to prevent the younger man running, "You have such a mind, politics would suit you if you gave it a chance. A man like you could change the world."

"Will you not be content until I am some useful public figure?" said Sherlock, "You want a puppet Mycroft, not a brother. I will not be your fool."

"You do not need me to make you a fool Sherlock," said Mycroft, "You've proved to me you're perfectly capable alone."

"Then let me be alone."

"I will, if you truly wish it of me but first, please, go to the clinic, get clean and then take on the world," said Mycroft, "Do that and it will be the last thing I ever ask of you."

Sherlock shook his head, reaching behind the chair and picking up a ratty backpack, "Until the next time," he said, "You needn't worry about me anymore Mycroft. The Holmes name won't be tarnished further than Father already allowed it to be. I won't bring you shame and you can disown me all you like. You and I are in two different worlds now."

The elder brother remained silent as he watched the younger man head to the door, not pausing to look back as he left. Sherlock watched himself leave, knowing what he had wanted to do then and willing him to do it now but the young man didn't return and the front door soon slammed decidedly. Sherlock went to speak but another sound caught his hearing, choked sobs that broke past the suppression they were put under. He turned to see his brother lose all composure, turning his back to the wall and sliding down it without a care for the dust that coated his suit. The cries broke then and Sherlock felt his heart break at the sight, never having known Mycroft to cry even in childhood.

"He loved you so much and yet you pushed him away, followed your own path."

"I thought I knew better," said Sherlock, "Please, can I go to him?"

The little girl shook her head, "He's only an image, a memory, you can no more comfort him than you can undo what has passed."

"But isn't that what I am meant to do, undo what I have done?"

"I speak only of the time before you, not of the time after," said the girl, "Come now, there is more to see."

Sherlock wanted to resist but he followed as she took his hand once more, leaving his brother to his tears as they stepped through the door to what had been his hallway. The room beyond however was wrong, a ratty bedsit rather than the ornate hallway of his parents' home.

"This was my first flat in London," said Sherlock, "I never paid a day's rent."

The dingy room was too dark to see much in but he could make out the shape of the sparse furnishings, the mattress on the floor that made a bed and the small little camp stove that served as both heat and light. The dim light it gave off intensified and he almost recoiled in horror at what he saw. His own form lay strewn across the floor, too thin by half and paler than the ghostly child beside him. It was the belt buckled too tightly around his arm and the needle still imbedded in the flesh of it that made the image truly terrifying, reminding him that it was not just the trips but the real world that was as dark and twisted when the heroin had taken him.

He turned as the door slammed back on its hinges, letting in the weak light and illuminating the figure behind. He saw Lestrade quickly survey the room before he hurried to the body lying on the floor. Training kicked in as he felt for a pulse and checked the unconscious man's breathing, before sighing with pained relief.

"You stupid boy," he said picking him up as best he could off the floor and placing a pillow under his head, "What a mess?"

Sherlock looked on as his friend, who at that point had been no more than annoyance when he was clearly on Mycroft's payroll, pulled an ancient looking mobile phone from his pocket and held it to his ear.

"Mr Holmes," he said, "I've found him sir. He's unconscious but he's alive."

Sherlock looked on amazed as Lestrade recited the address and promised to wait, hanging up the phone before he turned his attention back to the young man beside him, covering him with a blanket. He watched as he was tended to with all the care one would offer a child, none of the brash attitude he knew of the man before him. The look in his eyes was familiar though, one Sherlock caught so fleetingly whenever Lestrade was berating him on a case. It was the look of a father, of the love that endured beyond patience; it was the same look Mycroft wore far more often but in both Sherlock ignored it.

The scene began to grow dark before him and he looked down at his small guide, this time merely taking her hand as she offered it and following her from the room. Again they walked through a door and again the room was wrong but this time Sherlock did not recognise it. It was once more sparse though better furnished than his own former bedsit, a neatness to everything that he could never achieve. It had the look of a hotel, so temporary with nothing to give away its occupant to anyone who glanced with a normal eye for detail. Sherlock however saw the clues and turned with surprise to the girl beside him.

"John?" he said, a hope in him that he could not quite place.

"John," she said, "Before you."

As though her words were the cue he heard a faint cry and turned, seeing the figure in the bed move. He stepped closer, the light from the streetlamp filtering through the gap in the curtains and throwing his friend's face into sharp relief. His hair was shorter, cut in the military style Sherlock had first seen him with and he knew he was seeing his friend so soon after he was invalided home from the war. John's plaintive cry only offered more evidence, the nightmares Sherlock had heard in those first few months of them living together, the nightmares he had often wanted to go up and chase away but had never known how to, instead hovering at the base of the stairs as though somehow that could bring comfort.

Such inaction was not upon him now though as he knelt beside the bed, "John it's alright," he said, "Just wake up and it will go away."

"He can't hear you," said the girl from across the room, "You're not really there."

"Of course I'm here, I'm…" Sherlock trailed off as he reached out to his friend's trembling form only for his hands to pass straight through him as though one of them were only made of air.

John's cries and thrashes continued to grow in distress and Sherlock could only remember one other time he had felt so helpless, stood on the roof with Moriarty before he had jumped in the vain attempt of saving his friends. The scene before him only compounded the sense of failure his father's ghost had instilled in him. Unable to comfort his friend even as he wrenched himself to waking, sat up in bed with horror still marring his face as he tried to distance himself to the memory of war. Sherlock knew he could not see him and the pain only doubled when the soldier looked straight through him across the room.

Sherlock moved on instinct as John climbed from the cramped single bed, following behind him as he crossed the room. He wanted to reach out, lay a hand on the tense shoulder and reassure him. He had so often shrugged off the touch when John had tried to calm him but now he knew the sentiment that prompted him to try and try again though he refused to name it. He was at John's side as he sat down at the small desk and reached into the drawer. The gun was so familiar it was almost like a little piece of home in the strange twilight world but the look John regarded it with failed to endear it. The soldier held the gun with a practised hand, finger moving on and off the trigger before he tossed it onto the desk in front of him.

Famed powers of deduction were not needed to understand the choice the soldier was trying to make and once more Sherlock tried in vain to touch his friend, to hold his arms in place and prevent him doing anything stupid. He felt tears on his own cheeks as John bent over the desk with his head in his hands and began to sob, the kind of cries only those sure they did not have an audience would emit.

Sherlock knelt beside the chair, hating that he could always have an answer except for the time when he most needed one.

"Please, spirit," he said quietly though he knew he was heard, "No more of this. It's not fair. This isn't my John, not my John. Show me him happy and home, not in this horrible place with these horrible dreams."

"This is before you," said the girl at his back, "He is not your John."

"Then show me him when he is mine," said Sherlock, "Not this shadow. Please."

"Take my hand 'Lock."

He reached up and took hold of the cold, small hand on his shoulder just as John turned his head, his eyes widening as though he had seen him but Sherlock could not speak, the room falling black before him.


	3. The Present

The Present

Sherlock groaned as he tried to open his eyes, a headache already thumping behind them even in the dim light of the flat. He shuddered at the cold of the room reaching instinctively behind for something to cover himself with until he grabbed hold of something soft and woollen. He pulled it over to him, only pausing as he saw what it was that he held in his hand. The wool was black but brighter colours took hold at the collar and Sherlock immediately smiled at how he had ribbed his friend for it when he had worn it for their Christmas Eve party. Without giving it any conscious thought he brought the jumper to his face, inhaling deeply but only pain hit him as he could smell nothing, not even the familiar smell of the flat seeming to come from the garment.

He wanted to weep, memories of what he had seen at the hands of his first visitor still fresh in his mind; the degradation of his own life and then the state of John on his return from the war. He wished he could pretend it away, claim it a dream but the alien feeling of the flat remained and he knew there was no pretence that could alter it. He sat up, keeping the jumper firmly in his grip and planning to await the second of his prophesised guides. At first he thought it a trick of the light but as he turned to the open door he knew that it was no such thing. Where it had once been closed and locked the door to the hallway stood open as it had done when the child's spirit had first led him from the flat.

Without waiting he sprang from the sofa and bolted through the door, worried that it would slam shut before he passed through it. It stayed open and no noise gave away the terrifying feet that had pounded the stairs when he had been locked away from them. He took the stairs two at a time, his heart pounding a tattoo that had nothing to do with physical exertion. He hit the door to John's room with enough force that it would have given even with the unknown pressure preventing it from doing so.

His heart sank as the room stood bare still, nothing to even hint at the presence of his friend and yet he still turned a circuit within its walls, eyes trained to find anything that could denote a clue. Not even a stray speck of dust gave away knowledge of John and Sherlock slumped against the wall, knees drawn up to his chest and spread with the jumper before he lay his forehead down upon it.

He wasn't sure how long he remained sat on that cold dusty floor, cursing his own inaction but at the same time unable to stir from the place that should still be John's. It was only when he heard the distant sound of Big Ben striking two that he raised his head, finding the room as cold and empty as it had been before. It took a moment though for his peripheral vision to pick up something amiss, turning to see the wardrobe stood against the far wall. John's wardrobe. He had crossed to it before he was even aware of his own movement, the door thrown open with a force that nearly rent it from its hinges. The smell of it hit him immediately, heady and almost overpowering after the sensory depravation of the flat. Soap, tea, various degradations of fabric softener scent, warmth, wood and the smell that was so uniquely John that it survived even beyond the hottest wash the launderette could offer.

Sherlock fell into the jumble of jumpers and shirts, pushing through them to the back of the wardrobe. His knuckles rapped against the wood at the back and then at the sides, the wardrobe as solid and real as it could be. His hope seemed to rise as he found each familiar item of clothing before his hand fell on a familiar bag at its base. Tatty and worn he had seen it a few times and opened it once but even he had found a sense of propriety and had left it well alone. Propriety however had no bearing on him now and he tore into it, scattering photos and letters from unknown sources until his hand closed around a small box. He wrenched it free and stepped back from the closet, running his fingers over the lacquered box with a reverence only usually held for his violin before he opened it, the two medals beneath catching the dim light of the room. He turned them in their velvet casing, seeing his flatmate's name engraved on the back. He traced the deep-set lettering with a finger as though it were Braille, John's name running beneath time and time again.

He reached out on instinct as he heard something shift and fall towards him, expecting maybe a coat slipped from its hanger or at worst the clothes rail coming down but what met his hand was far heavier than any garment and had him stumbling back in shock. Before him lay the unmoving figure of a soldier, dusty desert fatigues worn and bloodied, the majority of the gore clearly from the large exit wound in the back of his head. Sherlock choked down the bile that rose in his throat at the sight. He was used to dead bodies, had seen the most gruesome and macabre of injuries but the shock of seeing the man laid dead before him sent him almost reeling. His only consolation came in the close-cropped black hair visible around the exit wound; whoever the man was there was no chance that it could be John.

Sherlock was sure in reality there wasn't anything much more alarming than a dead soldier falling from your missing flatmate's wardrobe in the dead of night when the world around you seemed to be going mad however when said cadaver began to move it was all Sherlock could do not to clamber into the wardrobe and slam the door behind him like a five year old hiding from the bogey man. The soldier groaned, shuddered, began to move, one hand coming to the bloody mess at the back of his head before he slowly sat up.

"Bloody thing," he muttered to himself before he turned his head, blood shot eyes standing out almost as starkly as the small entry wound just above his left eyebrow, "You gonna just stand there posh boy or are you going to help me up?"

Sherlock hesitated briefly before he held out a hand, the soldier grasping his forearm before he pulled himself to his feet. The soldier stretched, moving his muscles as though it was a luxury that had been a long time denied him. He was young, barely twenty if he could even own that, though experience shone in his bloodshot eyes. His uniform was dusty and torn, bearing the scars of a battle but it was the insignia that truly caught Sherlock's attention.

"You were in John's regiment," said the detective.

The soldier smiled, "Well they said deductive genius and there you go proving it. Johnny Watson was our medic, good man, patched me up once or twice," he said, "Shame the tosser went and got himself shot five minutes before I got this…then again doubt he could have done too much."

Sherlock couldn't help the huff of laughter that escaped him, "Would take more than a few stitches," he said, "I guess you're the second of my guides?"

"There we go again, deductive genius," said the soldier, "My name's Tommy, Private Thomas Jackson if we're being formal. I was gunned down in Kandahar the same day John Watson was, he was the lucky one, me not so much. Didn't know much about it if I'm honest with you but since then I've 'woken up' a few times, seen a few old buddies that have gone astray when they've got back home."

"You do this regularly?" said Sherlock, "You've seen others like me? What happened to them? Do you know how I can get out of here?"

Tommy smiled, "Now wouldn't some of your pals like that recorded, you not knowing something and me with all the answers," he said, "Look, Holmes, I can't tell you what happens when people die, I can only tell you what happened to me. Couple of times I've woken up to find an old buddy of mine doing something stupid and I've stopped him. Always knew who it would be too, kinda got this feeling but with you it was different. I know who you are, what you are and what you've done but I don't know you. All I know is what I've got to show you. You're John's buddy, best buddy if all is to be believed so I guess that's why I'm here."

"And what do you have to show me?" said Sherlock warily, "You're…colleague, already showed me more than I needed to see. I've no desire to visit my past again."

"We aren't going that far back," said Tommy, "She showed you what happened before you came to Baker Street, I'm going to show you what happened after you got there."

"I already know what happened after, I was there."

"You were there too when you played in the front room with Mycroft but you never saw your father as proud as he was watching you, you never saw your brother cry when you left that day, you never saw John Watson eyeing that Browning he smuggled home with an intent even now you cannot accept," said Tommy, "This isn't about you Holmes, this is about them and what you need to learn from them. Take my hand."

Sherlock eyed the bloody fingers warily, "Can't I just follow you?"

"Fairy!" said the soldier with a teasing smile, "Don't worry, no one will see you."

Sherlock bristled, "I don't care what people see."

"Good, then take my hand and stop yammering, we've got a lot to do."

Sherlock reached out, feeling the ooze of the blood as it transferred onto his hand, he let himself be led but hesitated as he realised it was back into the wardrobe.

"What, you've never read Narnia?" said the soldier.

"Read what?"

"Never mind. In!"

Sherlock followed the soldier, darkness enveloping him more so than it should and he barely balked at the sensation of space as they passed through the back of the closet as though it had never existed. Light finally played at his eyelids again and he opened them, stepping out into the moonlight that filtered through the window. The room was so familiar that Sherlock's heart leapt in his chest, John's room with John's things. He looked on as Tommy loosed his hand and pointed to the bed, the blankets concealing a familiar form that was still in the gentle repose of sleep.

"John," breathed Sherlock, the sound more of a benediction that a name as he said it.

He hurried to the other side of the bed and crouched down, seeing his friend sleeping soundly, one arm buried beneath the pillow as the other hung down over the edge of the bed. He smiled at the gentle snore he had often heard whenever John had fallen asleep on the sofa downstairs, the snore the soldier would so often deny until the day Sherlock had recorded it as proof. Sherlock's smile widened as he remembered the ruckus they had caused afterwards, John chasing him round the flat in a vain attempt to rescue the phone and delete the recording until Mrs Hudson had come upstairs to see what the commotion was about. Sherlock reached out a hand, barely touching a finger to his friend's with no desire to wake him.

"No nightmares," he said, the image before him chasing away the horrid memories of John in the throes of his nightmare.

"Not a one," said Tommy at his back, "He's not had one for months. Not since you promised him you would always wake him if you heard."

"I remember," said Sherlock, "He came downstairs and he was such a mess. I'd heard him but didn't think that he'd want me to intrude. We sat up talking until dawn and I promised him then…"

"Sherlock?"

The sleepy murmur silenced him and he looked down to see his friend shift in the bed, still deeply within his slumber. He wanted to smile but something else stilled the expression, a knot in his chest he had known time and again in Baker Street that he was only now beginning to realise the origin of. He did not have a chance to think on the emotion though as a noise sounded from downstairs and Tommy opened the door to the corridor beyond.

"He'll be alright," said the soldier with a smile, "And we have more that we need to see."

Sherlock wanted to protest but he knew how far it had got him before and, with one final look at his sleeping friend, he got to his feet and followed his guide into the corridor beyond. Tommy soon had him down first one flight of stairs and then another, the pair of them reaching the door to Mrs Hudson's flat to the tune of her singing beyond the door. Once again the soldier opened the door but the sound of it seemed to go unnoticed by the woman sat in her chair a small pile of clothes that clearly weren't her own on the coffee table before her. Sherlock watched as she took up a familiar purple shirt, tutting at the buttons missing from one cuff before she began to hold several reels of purple thread in various shades up to the material. She finally settled on one she was happy with before she set it aside and picked up a box of buttons, again selecting ones that matched those still on the shirt.

"Couldn't even get my own mum to do my sewing for me," said Tommy as he leant back against the dresser.

"I thought John got it done by someone outside," said Sherlock as Mrs Hudson started to hum to herself once more, threading up her needle before she set about attaching one of the buttons to the cuff, "She's never mentioned that she does it."

"She's always trying to look after you," said Tommy, "Running around after the two of you keeps her young."

Sherlock smiled, "Anyone else would argue that running after John and I takes years off."

"Not her," said Tommy, "Before she met you and you helped her the way you did, she was just existing. She always loves it when she can tell her bridge club about her boys, she records every news program you're on. Seems to be a theme with you."

"What does?" said Sherlock as Mrs Hudson tied off one button and started on another.

"Now that would be telling, detective," said the soldier, picking up a framed picture from the dresser and handing it to him, "Tell me that's not a smile you put there."

Sherlock took the picture, amazed that he could touch something in the room that seemed not to acknowledge him. The picture showed both him and John stood either side of their landlady outside the front door of Baker Street, the picture taken by one of the Speedy's regulars when they had caught all three on the doorstep. He could not deny the pride on the woman's face, looking more the mother to her two tenants than Sherlock had ever known even his own mother to be.

"There are others you know," said Tommy, "Let me show you."

Again Sherlock had no time to protest as the room fell dark and he felt the air shift around him. He heard the sound of keys in a door and the rustle of plastic bags as light spilled in, revealing an unfamiliar hallway. He squinted in the poor light, trying to make out the figure shuffling through the door under the weight of several large supermarket bags, feet trying to ward off the two tiny kittens that seemed intent on either escaping or climbing up their frustrated mistress.

"Molly?" said Sherlock as he recognised the young woman before him, "This is Molly's house?"

"Flat," said the soldier, seemingly more interested in the magazine he had taken from the basket beside the hallway bookcase, "You know the drill, watch her and see if you learn something genius."

Sherlock frowned, opening his mouth to offer up some sort of retort but he was cut short as he heard the sound of a bag splitting before the contents littered the floor. He was impressed by the curse that the seemingly ever sweet Molly let loose as apples rolled across the floor, hampered here and there by the strands of dry spaghetti that had fallen from their split packet. Molly was soon fighting off the kittens as she tried to collect up her spilled shopping, leaving Sherlock to watch and offer as much help as he would if he had the capability. It felt like several hours passed as Sherlock followed Molly around her flat, the woman going through the traditional habits of most households for an evening. He looked over to Tommy often, hoping the soldier would give some sort of hint as to the point of the visit but the answers were not forthcoming and Sherlock was soon leant back against the bookcase in the living room, arms waving for attention but Molly remained ignorant of his presence, her eyes trained on the television and the soap opera that played out on it.

It was only when the dreadful program had finished that some form of action began once more and Sherlock moved to behind the sofa as Molly took up her laptop. He watched over her shoulder as she first read through several emails, their content little of interest to Sherlock and he feared once again that he had reached a dead end. He groaned when he saw Molly leave her emails and navigate towards an online dating site, its garish pink and purple almost having the detective turning away in hope of protecting his eyesight. The same instinct that kept him watching crap telly after he discovered though kept his attention on the screen and he rolled his eyes as Molly opened a message from someone clearly attempting some form of email based seduction.

His exasperation only grew as he heard Molly all but mewing over the words that were clearly designed to entice her into a date. Finally the young woman hit the button to reply but her fingers hesitated over the keys before she typed a word.

"What would he say Molly Hooper?"

Sherlock hadn't realised how silent the room had seemed until he heard Molly's voice ring out.

"What would he say?" said the woman again, "He'd take one look, even at an email, and tell you everything that was wrong with him."

The detective looked on as Molly back tracked to the email, running through it once more with far more care and far less emotion.

"He's not told you a thing about himself, not really," she said, "He may as well have just copied your interest list before filling bits in. Sherlock would have seen that first time."

Sherlock couldn't help the pride that welled in his chest as he realised that she was realising what he had in the first read through; the man had revealed nothing of himself, instead flattering Molly's taste in a clear attempt to win her favour with little effort. He knew that Molly often watched him work in the morgue but he never realised how much attention she paid to his methods, let alone learned to put them into practice. He watched as she deleted the message and then, after a moment's thought, her entire profile on the site.

"Make sense now?"

Sherlock startled as he heard the voice close against his ear, turning to find Tommy with his alarming injuries stood right beside him. He looked swiftly at Molly, expecting the young woman to have reacted to the noise but she was too engrossed in a video of a cat chasing its own tail, reminding Sherlock once more that he was not part of the world that he was viewing.

"Come on, more to see," said Tommy but this time it was Molly's voice that stopped him also.

Both soldier and detective turned back to see John's blog open on her computer screen, the case write up long past as she scrolled through the comments; John and Sherlock playfully admonishing each other for details contained in the passage above. Sherlock remembered the case and the subsequent argument over the write up's content. He and John had been sat opposite one another in Baker Street, computers open and firing off replies online whilst they threw teasing looks at one another as thought daring each other to say something even more cutting. The comments had soon been interspersed with demands for milk until finally they had both abandoned the blog in favour of the case Lestrade had called into them.

"When are you going to realise how much you love each other?" said Molly before she shut the laptop with a little more force than necessary, "If you realised it then you'd put the rest of us out of our misery."

"What do you mean Molly?" said Sherlock, forgetting himself, "Love?"

A strong hand gripped his wrist and again the room went dark, the air shifting around them but the feeling no longer troubled Sherlock instead Molly's words ringing in his mind. So engrossed was he in the thought that he didn't initially realise that they were walking through a busy London street, the passers by failing to notice the gaping wound in his companions head. It wasn't long before the familiar silhouette of New Scotland Yard came into view, people bustling in and out with the familiar pace of the busy centre. The mounted the steps, still unseen and Tommy was soon leading him up the familiar route to Lestrade's department.

"I can see why you like all this police stuff," said Tommy, as he pushed open the door to the department, "I thought about it for a while when I was a kid but my Dad thought it was a shit job. Don't think he was much impressed when I chose the Army instead."

"Probably less likely to get shot in the Army these days," said Sherlock absently as he took in the room before him without everyone watching him in concern.

Tommy laughed humourlessly, "Guess I just got unlucky," he said, sitting down in one of the unoccupied chairs, waving off any response as Sherlock turned to him, "You know the drill by now."

Sherlock walked through the room, the sound of the phones ringing and fingers typing almost making the world around him seem normal and real but he knew there would be no miraculous return. He headed towards the glass panelled office where Lestrade sat at his desk, a pencil clasped between his teeth as he scanned a file spread out before him. Sherlock pushed open the door, not even causing the other man to flinch as he stepped inside. The policeman frowned before he ran his hand over his eyes, knocking the pencil to the floor with a muttered curse. He reached for a coffee cup, eyeing its meagre contents before he placed it back on his desk, leaning back in his chair with a tired sigh.

The door opened at Sherlock's back and he turned to see Sally Donovan walk in, her face for once set with concern rather than a scowl.

"Sir, there's not much more we can do tonight," she said, "You need some sleep."

Lestrade shook his head, "Can't, the Super is on this one big time and we need a result."

"Then get some sleep," said Donovan, "A fresh pair of eyes might let you see something you've missed."

"Fresh pair of eyes," said Lestrade, "Maybe that's what we need."

Donovan frowned, "I didn't mean him, sir."

Lestrade sat up in his chair, "We're stumped and knowing him he'll walk in and see what we've missed in two seconds flat."

"Or compromise our entire investigation," said Donovan, "Every time you let that freak in here something goes wrong."

"Yet each time we've got a result too," said Lestrade, "Sherlock Holmes has solved more of our cases in the past year than we have in the past five."

"Insider information no doubt," muttered Sally.

Lestrade shook his head, "When will you get off this pointless vendetta?" he said, "Sherlock might not be conventional but if you gave him a chance you might even like him."

Sally scoffed inelegantly.

"He's changed since John moved in with him, he's calmed him down," said Lestrade, "These days he can almost be alright at times."

Sally crossed her arms, "You sound fond of him."

Lestrade shrugged, "Why shouldn't I be?" he said, "I reckon if more people actually bothered to look beyond his gob they'd realise he is actually right about a lot of things."

"Well I'll remind you of that when he's so convinced he's right he starts popping off anyone who says he's wrong."

"There's no winning with you," said Lestrade, reaching for his phone, "I'm calling him in and if you don't want to work with him you can find some filing to do."

"Yes sir," muttered Sally as she left, the door closing a little heavier than necessary behind her.

Sherlock stayed a moment, watching Lestrade as he tapped out a message on his phone, the policeman long since knowing to text rather than call the detective. When little else was forthcoming though he realised his time had ended and he left the office, returning to the noise of the room beyond and Tommy who still sat in the chair he had left him in, absently playing with one of the ridiculous executive toys that littered most desks in some shape or form.

"I guess I'm done here," said Sherlock, stopping by the desk.

"Where do you want to go next?" said the soldier.

"I can pick?" said Sherlock, the offer seemingly from left field in a world where he had grown used to being dictated to.

"Your soul," said Tommy, "We've only got two more stops and it doesn't really bother me what order we do them in."

"Mycroft and John?" said Sherlock.

"And they call you a detective," said Tommy, with a grin, "Pick one."

"I get to see both?"

"You have my word on it," said Tommy.

Sherlock felt a name form on his lips but he worried at the truths that he might and paused, "Mycroft," he said finally, "Let me see Mycroft."

Tommy extended a finger to the door to his left, "Through there then, I'll be waiting here for you."

"But Mycroft's house is the other side of town."

"The rules of physics don't exactly apply here," said Tommy, "Now shift. You and I haven't got long left and I don't exactly want to be around when my counterpart arrives."

Sherlock frowned but followed the pointed finger, passing through the door indicated and finding himself in a very different setting to New Scotland Yard. He was familiar with the Diogenes Club, often summoned there at his brother's behest or attending under his own volition when he wished to make mischief for the elder Holmes. He walked through the silent rooms, not knowing whether or not he was seen as none would acknowledge him in the Club spirit or otherwise. He trod the familiar path to his brother's private study, finding him sat beside the fire, one tailor leg crossed over the other with a newspaper spread out upon them. He seemed to be reading intently and Sherlock crossed the room to him, wondering at just when his brother's hair had begun to thin so or just when the faint lines at the corners of his eyes had grown so pronounced. The man looked tired, careworn in a way that the world outside never saw.

The effect was ended though as the elder man smiled at whatever he was reading and Sherlock moved to behind his shoulder to better see the words that had brought such a look to him. Where he had expected to see some political victory or an improvement in stock figures he instead saw his own face and an article on a case he had taken on soon after his first meeting with Moriarty. It was one of the first that got him into the papers, the slippery slope he had soon found himself tumbling down. Back then though he had not known the extent to which it would prove his downfall and it seemed neither did his brother as he chuckled over a particular quote from the astounded witnesses that had seen the final act of the case.

Mycroft got to his feet, carrying the paper to his desk and setting it down before he opened a drawer, taking out scissors, paste and a large leather-bound tome. He cut out the article with precision before he leafed through the book, passing article after article concerning one person and one alone.

Sherlock was shocked to see almost every article printed about him pasted into the book along with print outs from John's blog, photographs and other items all relating to the cases he had solved. He looked on as the newest article was glued into a clear page, his brother sitting back in his chair when it was done with a more peaceful look on his face than Sherlock had seen in a while.

"You're proud of me," said Sherlock quietly.

The door creaked behind him and he heard the sound of ringing phones and typing, the sounds of Scotland Yard where Tommy was still waiting for him. He turned but looked back one last time, seeing his brother loosen his tie and sit back in his chair, a tumbler of whiskey in his hand.

He smiled and returned to the room beyond, Tommy already waiting for him beyond the door.

"One more stop," said the soldier.

"John," said Sherlock.

Tommy nodded, turning towards another door and leading him out of Scotland Yard. They were once more in the streets of London, passers by paying them no heed as they took the familiar route to Baker Street. They were almost upon the road when Sherlock realised they were following behind a familiar figure, struggling with supermarket bags that looked set to split at any moment. Sherlock hurried along until he fell into step with the figure before him. John's face looked relaxed as he made his way towards their home, his mind clearly elsewhere. Sherlock smiled at the sight, content to walk alongside him until they reached Baker Street. John was soon fighting the lock, all but tumbling through the door with his bags before he tripped up the stairs.

"Sherlock!" he called, "Sherlock? If you've run off again, I won't be responsible…you could have at least gotten a meal inside you before you went off again."

Sherlock followed him through the door to the flat, passing through him like a ghost when John came to a sudden halt just beyond the door. The feeling was so alien that it took Sherlock a moment to recover himself and turn back to his friend. It was not John that he first saw however but his own figure, laid out on the sofa in a deep sleep, suit jacket and shoes still on as though he had just collapsed there. It was a familiar pose post case, one he often woke in whenever he had spent days without sleep.

He saw John set down his shopping backs with a sigh, shaking his head in amusement as he crossed the room to retrieve a blanket from the back of his chair, returning to the sofa and gently covering Sherlock's sleeping form. He reached out a tentative hand, stroking the dark curls splayed out over the couch cushions.

"You've run yourself ragged with this one haven't you?" he said, "I really wish you wouldn't but I know I'll never stop you."

John paused in his touch, looking down at the man sleeping before him with a look in his eyes Sherlock had never seen before.

"So long as you come back to me, I'll never stop you," said John, bending down and pressing a kiss to Sherlock's pale forehead.

The sleeping man stirred but did not wake, instead pressing back into the cushions and beginning to lightly snore. John chuckled to himself before he picked up his bags. Sherlock followed him, feeling his heart hammer against his ribs at what he had just witnessed. He hovered at John's side as the doctor put away the shopping before he started on a meal for them both, careful to not disturb any of Sherlock's experiments even when he needed space to cook. Finally the food was in the oven and John returned to the living room, checking once more on his sleeping friend before he settled in his own chair, turning the telly on low and settling down with a cup of tea.

"Get it now?"

Sherlock turned to see Tommy leaning against the window, his uniform looking more tattered than he remembered.

"I get it now," he said.

"Good," said the soldier, "Then we need to go."

Sherlock shook his head, "I'm not leaving," he said, turning back to where John sat and sitting down on the carpet beside his chair, "I want to stay here."

"You can't stay here Sherlock," said Tommy, "Its not real."

"Then I'll have it for as long as I can then."

"You have until the clock chimes," said the soldier, "Good luck."

Sherlock was silent, content to be so for the first time in his life as he sat beside his friend.

xxxx


	4. The Yet To Come

The Yet To Come

Sherlock sat shivering in the now cold room, long after all had gone dark only to return as the strange twilight world he had left, everything insubstantial and wrong. The scenery did not concern him however, what tore at his heart was the absence at his side where John had been sitting. It didn't matter that his friend had not even been aware of his presence, even in the odd silence Sherlock had felt the warmth and the love that he was only now coming to realise permeated every part of their flat, the hub of their life together. Only now, alone once more, did he rail against his own blindness and indifference to the feelings he had so long refused to acknowledge. As the cold crept closer he even cursed his beloved work that had thrown him into the madness that was Jim Moriarty's web until he had sacrificed himself to save the people he cared for without them ever knowing just how deeply he did.

He wanted to scream, shout, beg whatever kept him in such purgatory but he kept silent as though it could protect him for what he knew he must next see. Despite his own conceit in his intelligence he had never once concerned himself with how people's lives would be without him in it, never once feeling part of such a collective that he imagined how his absence would be felt. He knew it was another part of his removal from the human condition, a part of his humanity he pushed aside whilst others embraced it, the rest of the world trying to visualise how their loved ones would move on if they were snatched from the world. It was only ever imaginings that people had but he knew he would see a far grosser reality, his anticipated guide sure to show him the future without him in it.

He feared to be forgotten now, reduced to no more than a memory of an eccentric man they had all once known but now he feared more; seeing them move on, happy without him, unburdened of Sherlock Holmes.

The clock struck, the sentinel of despair ringing in the far distance of the otherwise silent world. He longed to reach out for the blanket that hung over the edge of John's chair, wanting to pull it over his head like a child hiding from some imagined terror. He didn't turn as he heard the door behind him open, prolonging the time until he had to face the sight of the future he was not in. He heard footsteps but the sound was alien, a click and an oddly staccato rhythm as though two feet rather than one met the ground on each step. He heard a snuffling and then a faint growl, the sound causing him to turn in alarm that it was not person that had come from him.

He had seen the beast in the doorway once before, the mad, jet-black mastiff that had so terrified his drugged mind in the mists of Dartmoor. Baskerville's fabled hound still terrifying even when its mystery was explained. Sherlock got warily to his feet, seeing an intelligence in the eyes of the hound that was not by nature meant to be seen in such a beast. Whatever his guide truly was it had chosen the form before him and he knew he had no choice but to follow.

"Is it time then?" he said, hoping his voice would ease the tension but its tone only adding to his unease, "Must I see a future without me in it? Whatever you show me cannot touch the horror of what I already know I have lost."

The hound did not speak but a wind rustled through the flat, fluttering papers all around until it settled once more. Sherlock looked down at the page that had fallen at his feet, its image chilling his blood at the sight. His name was etched upon a black headstone, dead flowers littering the ground beneath it, the golden lettering weathered and worn by time and lack of care. He had been forgotten, his final resting place neglected until none but the grounds keeper of the graveyard would ever come near. He didn't want to see anymore, the image enough to wound him in such a way that it felt almost fatal but the growl from the doorway gave him his choice and he followed the silent hound from the room. They descended the stairs, the corridor below lit by a bear bulb hung from above, illuminating the boxes stacked haphazardly along the walls. Baker Street had never been the best kept of places despite his landlady's best intentions but now it looked neglected to the point of ruin, damp showing through the wall paper that was hung in places by cobwebs long since forgotten by their hosts.

The hound moved on, the door opening onto the street outside, sodden and chilled with the rain that fell without pause. An ambulance and a removal truck stood idle, the latter's owner leaned against it, cigarette burned to almost nothing where it hung from the corner of his mouth. Another figure moved to join him, clad as he was in overalls that bore the evidence of his work.

"How long d'ya reckon they'll be in there?" he groused to his smoking friend.

"Gawd knows, all being said the old bird's pretty batty," said the other, "Probably having to coax her out of the kitchen cupboard or something."

"Shame that she's getting carted off to that place, ain't she got no family?"

"Not so I's heard. You do know who she is though don't you?"

"Hudson," said the younger of the two, "That's what it said on the paperwork."

The smoker clouted his colleague round the head with a hand that could rival a bear's paw, "Goon! Don't you never read? Was only five years past and you ain't that young. That there house was where that Sherlock Holmes lived, that one that said he was a detective and did all them murders. Topped himself after the police got onto him, poor old bird never shook off the stigma that she'd had a killer under her roof. No wonder she ran mad."

Sherlock wanted to silence the pair before him but the sound of footsteps behind stopped him. He heard the soft voice of a young woman, gently coaxing as though the person she aided was no more than a child. He did not want to turn, did not want to see what he feared to see but necessity compelled him. Despite her years and ailing hip Mrs Hudson had always seemed younger than most, her clothes and vivacity challenging many forty years her junior but now Sherlock did not see the tiny woman with the big personality who had thought nothing of telling him and John off as though they were no more than school boys, instead he saw a small, hunched figure clad in her nightclothes and slippers with her hair unkempt and growing out long where it hadn't been cared for. Once bright eyes looked clouded and dull, barely noticing the world around her as she shuffled out onto the pavement.

"I should leave a note for the boys," she said, her voice as small as she seemed, "Tell them not to worry."

"The boys left a long time ago Mrs Hudson," said the nurse, "You don't need to worry about the house anymore."

"Sherlock will blow something up if no one's home with him," said Mrs Hudson, her hands wringing in front of her, "Make sure Doctor Waston doesn't leave him on his own for too long."

The nurse smiled indulgently, "We'll do just that," she said, navigating the woman into the back of the ambulance.

The doors closed behind them, displaying the name of the institute Mrs Hudson was being borne away too and Sherlock's heart clenched at the sight, "But we always said…" he began, turning to the hound beside him, "John and I, we always said that whatever happened we'd see her right in her old age, keep the government from getting the house. He never wanted her in one of those state run old people's homes, he didn't like them. He always said that we were responsible for her."

The ambulance pulled away, the two removal men wasting no time in heading into the house and bringing out the stacked up boxes. A gruff growl pulled Sherlock from the scene and he followed the hound along the grey streets. Again no one seemed to notice them, Sherlock clad only in his shirtsleeves despite the storm and the terrifying hound at his side note even prompting a sidelong glance. At length they reached another building that he recognised, not much from the outside, just another city block but within the security was tighter than any famed depositary you could care to mention, the home of England's intelligence agents when they weren't basing from their more famous offices. Sherlock had been to the penthouse suite only a few times but he knew it well, Mycroft's home when he wasn't chained to his desk or residing at the country house that had been their boyhood home.

The security guards paid them no mind as they passed through the lobby and no one stopped them on the stair that rose upwards, doors opening without a need for a key or a passcode. Their silence however was soon broken, loud shouts of two men echoing down from the topmost apartment. Sherlock hurried his steps, fearing he would find his brother at the mercy of one of the nameless enemies that the public of Britain knew nothing about. It was not an enemy though that Sherlock saw as he walked through the door, but someone he now knew he should call friend although that friendship seemed to be tested when brotherly worry pushed to the fore.

Mycroft and Lestrade were almost toe-to-toe as they argued, their words bitter and nasty without seemingly having much meaning. It didn't take Sherlock long however, despite his inexperience in the field, to recognise an argument between lovers when he saw one. The notion was further compounded as he took in the front room alone, things that would never be Mycroft's littering the room, pictures of the two of them together and looking happy on the sideboard and the wall. Evidence of a relationship, once happy but now not so.

Sherlock knew that the two men had known each other for a long while, Lestrade acting as Mycroft's almost personal police officer when it came to managing the wayward Sherlock when drugs had been the be all and end all of his existence. He had never known a friendship between them however, their meetings when Sherlock had been alive mostly coincidental and never for long.

Sherlock smiled ruefully as he realised that the longest amount of time the two men would probably would have spent together would have been in the aftermath of his suicide; investigations, a funeral and a wake where they would both have been thrown together. Had it been then that they had found one another, a solace for the grief in each other's arms? Sherlock knew he would never know but he doubted their love, if he could even use such a bold word, would not have formed on any deep foundation. They were too different men, from too different worlds, the cracks obviously on show. They were so much older than Sherlock remembered them both, Mycroft looking grey and aged and Lestrade looking softer as though he had long since given up chasing the criminal fraternity. The relationship he saw falling apart was their last chance, the pair of them destined for a life alone if it failed.

Sherlock's brain skipped ahead from the scene, seeing both in the degradation of age, alone and leaving none to mourn them when they were gone. In forcing them together had he inadvertently destroyed the chance of happiness they could have found elsewhere? Sherlock could not bear the question and soon turned from the scene, flinching at the hateful words still being slung behind him.

"Please?" he said to the hound sat silently by the door, "No more of this."

The hound turned, heading back down the stairs and Sherlock followed but again the air seemed to shift and the corridor changed as they descended, the pristine décor morphing to a more worldly and lived in environment. He followed the dog to a door and it opened again with no command, leading him into a hallway he knew he had already stood in once that evening. Molly's home seemed more unkempt than he remembered it, shoes piled in the hallway and the carpets grey from dirt. He heard the muffled sounds of sobs from down the corridor and followed them, finding himself in a bedroom that had once been pink and girly but had been changed by another occupant, too apparent to be a new boyfriend instead something more long term, though no longer it seemed. Molly sat against the headboard, crying into her arms where they were draped over her knees. Two rings lay on the duvet in front of her, a cheap diamante ring and a plain gold band showing a marriage not long ended.

Her sobs were so pitiful that Sherlock's heart twisted in his chest and he wanted to reach out to her, gather her close in an embrace so alien to the pair of them that he had no doubt it would shock her but at least it would stop the tears. Photos fell from her hands onto the duvet, one landing face up and his breath stilled. At first he believed that it was his own face he saw, the man beside Molly tall and dark with the same sharp features and pale eyes. On second glance he saw the differences in the man but he knew Molly had seen the same features he first saw and he cursed that he had teased rather than addressed the infatuation the young woman had had with him. He had ignored it, pretended it away rather than confronting it. He knew it would have hurt her but in the end, if they had been the friends he believed they had been, they would have overcome it. Now she sat, alone and distraught with a ruined marriage at her back to a man who had been in his image. It was not often that Sherlock Holmes felt accountability but it stung there and then.

"Mummy?"

That was the final dagger, the one that pierced flesh and bone to reach his heart, the voice of a young boy from the doorway behind him before he saw him pass by. The little boy was no more than five, still young enough to be dragging a comfort blanket with him as he headed to his mother's bed. His hair was a wild disarray of black curls that his mother pushed back from his eyes as soon as he was settled in her arms. Molly rocked her son quietly, holding him close as though any moment he could be snatched away. The motion seemed to soothe the boy however and he was soon dozing, too innocent to truly understand his mother's tears.

Sherlock looked on as Molly pressed a kiss to the child's forehead, her tears hanging like crystals on his hair.

"My Sherlock," she said softly, "I wish I could have given you a proper daddy. The man I named you for would have been a proper daddy to you."

"Oh Molly," said Sherlock, not caring that she could not hear, "You silly girl."

He felt not only her loss as he looked on but his own, wondering if he could have been the child's father, at least in regards to biology if he had addressed Molly's infatuation. He had never thought of becoming a father, relationships never a feature of his life and clearly females were not the choice he would have made but a longing grew in him as he watched the boy that could have been his, part of him carrying on into the world. He wondered if he could ever have had such an existence, a relationship with John that he now longed for and a father to a child for Molly. The point was moot however, his current state making that all too apparent.

Molly's tears slowly subsided and she fell asleep holding her son, the photographs and her wedding band forgotten for at least a while. Sherlock turned to follow his silent guide once more but hesitated as he realised there was only one person left for him to see in the bleak future he was being shown.

"Don't show me that," he said to the hound, "Please, whatever future lies before him don't let me see. Let me believe him happy and fulfilled even if it is without me. I do not want to see him in that state but neither do I want to see him as lost as all the others I left behind. Haven't you shown me enough?"

The growl when it came this time was not low but fierce and loud, jaws snapping in a fury that brooked no argument. Sherlock wondered if the fate of those teeth would be better than the next scene but he was sure they would only be employed to drag him to witness it all the same. He followed, head bowed to his feet and taking nothing in of his surroundings, trusting to the hound to bear him wherever he was destined to go. When the hound finally paused, it looked up to him with a sadness in its great dark eyes that finally gave it the air of a canine rather than something more sinister. Sherlock reached out, his hand coming to rest on the smooth head and fingers scratching behind the large ears before he stepped back. The hound snuffled one last time before it left him, clearly the door before him Sherlock's alone to enter.

Sherlock rested his hand on the door, warring with himself over whether to take the final leap into the unknown. He knew whatever he saw beyond the door would concern John and the thought of what he could find terrified him. He wondered at his purgatory, one that would never be explained or altered if he faltered on the edge but the plummet into the abyss was terrifying. His mind sped back to the roof of Barts, the fate of his friends in jeopardy if he didn't give in to Moriarty's demands and the courage stirred in him again. He had jumped in the hope of saving his friends but had left them in jeopardy all the same but he could remedy that if what his father said was true and he learned from what he had been shown.

He pressed down on the door handle and the door swung inwards, revealing the room beyond lit only by the streetlamp outside. It was the smell that hit him first, like something poorly kept and decaying, the smell of a teenage boy's room but deeper, muskier. He stepped over the threshold, the door closing behind him but he paid it no mind as he took in the room. It was sparse, a bed in one corner and a desk across from it and he recognised it immediately. Though in reality John had never shown him the veterans hotel he had lived in on his return from Afghanistan, Sherlock had already seen it once before in the night past; the ghost of his school friend having made it one of her ports of call. The room was fairly well kept then but now it was in a state of disarray, clothes littering the floor along with week old take away boxes and more frighteningly, empty bottles of liquor.

Sherlock crossed the room, already aware of the form asleep in the bed that breathed evenly though by the look of the bottle beside the nightstand it was not a natural sleep but one brought on by alcohol. Light fell on the nightstand and drew his eyes to the letter that lay there, bearing the letterhead for Barts. He reached out, nudging aside the phone that covered the main body of text, surprised that he could manipulate the room when previously he had been unable. He almost wished that he still had the inability though as he read the letter's contents; liver failure, final stages, treatment needed. He looked down at the bottle beside the bed, not needing to be a genius to know the offer of treatment had likely been ignored.

Tears sprang to his eyes as he knelt beside the bed, reaching out until he rested a hand on the bunched up blankets that covered his friend. He felt the warmth of the other man's body heat, the slow, steady pace of his breathing as he slumbered. His John. He wasn't afraid of the thought anymore, he wasn't afraid of the feelings despite the pain they invoked in him at seeing the one he loved most in the world brought so low. He could not tell if it was his suicide that had brought his friend so low or whether it was the censure he would have received afterwards for being a friend to one labelled a killer and a coward. Sherlock laid his head against the bed, letting his tears fall silently as he prayed to a god he had never believed in to save his friend. He knew it was in vain though, miracles were not to be made, however surreal the world he found himself in was.

"Sherlock?"

He sat up swiftly at the hoarse whisper of his name, seeing John slowly fighting his way out of the fog of sleep.

"I'm here," he said, "I'm here John, you're not alone now."

John blinked his eyes open and for a moment Sherlock believed he had been seen but then distance came to his friend's gaze, the older man sitting up stiffly, tugging at his shirt that had stuck to him with sweat. He ran the back of his hand over his brow, smearing the perspiration that had gathered there, his body attempting to reject the alcohol in whatever way it could.

Sherlock moved as John struggled from the bed, gripping onto the nightstand as he groped on the floor, retrieving the stick that lay there. Leaning heavily on it he headed to the desk, flopping down in the chair with a huff of both pain and melancholy.

"Why can't you see me?" said Sherlock, "I want you to see me."

He looked on as John reached into the drawer of the desk, pulling out a picture frame and holding it up to the faint lamplight. Sherlock moved to better see the image, smiling at the sight of the two of them during their first Christmas at Baker Street. Mrs Hudson had taken the picture despite both of them initially refusing but she had not been deterred. Even Sherlock had had to later admit that he liked it, the two of them looking relaxed and carefree for once in their hectic lives.

John reached out across the desk, turning on the battered old radio that had once lived in their kitchen, the scratchy sounds of some eighties Christmas hit echoing back out at them.

"Merry Christmas Sherlock," he said sadly.

"Merry Christmas John," echoed the detective though his words went unheard.

John set the picture on the table before him, burying his head in his arms and beginning to cry quietly. The lack of sound tormented Sherlock even more than the sobs he had heard when John had been visited by dreams of the war, the tears feeling more hollow than before. He reached out on instinct, curling his hands around his friend's shaking shoulders and feeling him quake. He pressed his cheek to the thinning, greying hair at John's temple, muttering soft noises he hoped would offer comfort if they could be heard.

"I'm here, believe me I'm here."

John quieted and raised his head, stiffening suddenly, his breathing growing ragged. Sherlock followed his eye line to the picture but it was not the image that had caught the soldier's attention but the reflection, Sherlock's image reflected in the glass beside his own. Sherlock took an instinctive step back as his friend whirled around in his chair, knowing that he had seen him.

"Sherlock!" said John, elation coming to his eyes as he turned but it was short lived and eyes no longer saw the figure behind him, "Damn."

"I'm here," said Sherlock, his voice pleading as John stared out into the gloom of the room as though no one was there before him.

"No more of this," said John, reaching into the drawer once more and drawing out his gun.

"No!" said Sherlock as he watched the soldier check the ammunition within before he struggled to his feet, "John no!"

He reached out to grab him but his hands passed through him like a ghost and Sherlock could get no purchase to stop him. Movement caught his gaze and he saw his three guides stood beside the door to the small bathroom, silently watching him.

"Do something, please!" he begged, "I don't ask for me but please, please for John make this stop. Let me touch him, let me stop him."

The guides were silent and Sherlock turned from them to see his friend discard the stick that held his weight, almost stumbling as his leg tried to give out beneath him.

"John please, you have to stop," said Sherlock, falling to his knees beside his friend, "You've seen me once tonight, see me now please and stop. We can get through this, you and me, you just need to see me. Please stop"

His pleas fell on deaf ears as the gun was cocked with a noise that seemed to split the heavens with its tone. Sherlock reached out but again his hands fell like mist through his friend's form as John slowly raised the gun to his temple.

"No, no no, please god no," said Sherlock, the mantra repeated again and again as he watched the world seem to slow.

John's finger braced the trigger, tears falling from his deep blue eyes, "I'm coming Sherlock," he said, "I'm coming."

Sherlock was sure his scream drowned out the shot, his heart ceasing to beat at the same time as his friend's as John's body pitched forward under his own weight. Now cruel fate allowed Sherlock to touch him, allowed him to catch his body as it fell. He cradled him close, not caring for the blood that stained his skin and clothes, not caring for the tears or the sound of his own anguish. He saw the guides stood before him, silent and unfeeling before they all turned one by one from him, disappearing into the dark of the room. Sherlock didn't question and he didn't follow. He held tight to the man he loved and he cried.


	5. The Choice

The Choice

The touch on his shoulder made Sherlock jump but what startled him more was the fact that he no longer held his friend's body but his own heavy coat. He raised his head, finding that the scenery had changed as well, his own flat replacing the squalor of John's hostel. He turned, finding the ghostly figure of his father behind him and he did not think on his response, reaching out and grasping the older man to him.

"Tell me how to prevent this?" he begged, "Please, whatever I have to do I will do it."

Sherlock found himself pushed back from his father's grip, seeing concern in the eyes so like his own.

"I cannot tell you my son."

"Please, I can't bear the thought of him facing that future," said Sherlock, "Of any of them facing it. Can my death really be the root of all that?"

"These answers you were meant to find by listening to the guides you were given," said his father, "Sherlock they are relying on you to get this right."

"But if I don't die then Moriarty will still kill John and Mrs Hudson and Lestrade," said Sherlock, "I cannot let that happen, even to save the others. I cannot allow one life to be taken for another unless its my own that is given."

"Then the future you see will come to pass," said his father getting to his feet and stepping back, "And I will have failed too."

Sherlock looked on from his place on the seeing the chains that bound his father to the boulders increase threefold around him, "Just tell me what I have to do," he said, "I don't know the answer. I need you to help me."

"I've given you all the help I can but you must find the answer within yourself or you have no hope. Think. What must you do?"

"I mustn't die," said Sherlock, "If I die then they suffer but if I live they die anyway, how can either path help? Do I leave John to a death at his own hand or leave him to the aim of a sniper? How can you ask me to make that choice?"

"I'm not asking that choice from you," said his father, shielding his eyes as sunlight began to filter through the curtains of the flat, "The sun is coming up."

"What does the sun matter?" said Sherlock, "Give me a damn answer to this impossibility you have given me."

"The sun matters because when it is up you will have passed entirely into this would and everything you have seen will be irreversible. You have spoken of the impossible before, you know that it does not always have to be as it seems."

Sherlock got to his feet, groaning with frustration, "I am tired of all your riddles, of this damn place!" he cried, "If I live they die, if I die then they are ruined. What choice is there?"

"A choice you must make swiftly," said his father, the sun's light seeming to make his form fade as it grew brighter, "The sun will not wait. Sherlock think, for God's sake. You are clever, you have to think."

"Think of what? How to die without dying? How to live without living? If I can answer that then surely I have answered the question humanity has posed since its birth," said Sherlock, "Moriarty's men have to see me die or they'll…"

His father smiled faintly, "Yes, keep that in your head," he said, "Make a choice Sherlock, make a choice in your heart and if it is true, if you are certain then you may yet have a chance to save them. Think, think quickly, you have seconds."

Sherlock shook his head, "It cannot be done," he said, "Its impossible."

"Its improbable and you're Sherlock Holmes, you are my son, you can do this," said his father, "Please, don't condemn yourself to this place."

"But I can't…"

"You can," said his father, pulling his hand from the confine of his chains, a single rubber ball cradled in his palm before he bounced it once, "Think."

Sherlock gripped his hair, looking frantically before the man chained before him and the sun rising beyond the window. He heard the door slam downstairs and the booted feet rushing up them, up to John's room where his friend would ever scream if he did not find a way out of the conundrum before him. He looked up once more at his father, seeing the ball held in his hand and he felt an idea begin to form. The idea took shape swiftly and his breath caught in his throat as he felt the air in the room begin to shift.

"Yes," said his father all but breathlessly, "Yes. Think, think. You've got moments."

In the distance a bell began to toll the morning and Sherlock met his father's gaze, his head filled with the possible that he did not need to voice as he saw the same realisation in the eyes of the man before him.

"You have chosen well," said his father, "Good luck."

Sherlock watched his father's figure disappear as the ball bounced towards him. He reached out instinctively, the bells tolling and the sun rising at his back as it flew towards him. As it landed in his palm, everything went black.

xxxx

A/N: Thank you to all who have read and reviewed. Especially to WitchRavenFox and Junejuly15 who have supported me from the beginning.


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